This invention relates to a vehicle brake control apparatus having the capability of automatically decelerating or stopping a vehicle to avoid vehicle collision or reducing vehicle damage.
The Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 11-348799(1999), corresponding to the U.S. Pat. No. 6,157,892, has already proposed an automatic vehicle brake control technique for the purpose of avoidance of vehicle collision.
However, the above-described conventional vehicle automatic brake control technique is subjected to the following problems. For example, in a condition that the automatic brake operation is started in response to detection of collision danger and almost all of the grip force of a tire friction circle contributes to a braking force, if a driver tries to avoid the vehicle collision with a steering operation, the tire frictional force will deviate from the friction circle and accordingly the driver will not be able to obtain a desired steering force. As a deceleration operation amount decreases in accordance with the steering operation, attaining the driver's intended steering force is delayed.